Three Long Ass Minutes

When I started this blog, I set a goal for myself to post every Thursday and Sunday. The best of intentions get sidetracked by the rest of life. That’s what happened when I was told that I could not conceive a child through good old fashioned methods. I made other plans. I continued working and was set to begin a graduate program at the local state university. Here’s what happened…

October 2001

As I mentioned in a previous post, my cousin gave birth to a baby and I was devastated. It seemed like everyone could have a child but me. Joy in everyday things was nonexistent. I went through the motions. Work, school, sleep. Work, school sleep. More of the same. For months life continued this way.

November 2001

Nothing monumental. Life as usual. Oddly enough, I continued to hit my menstrual cycle like clockwork the last week of the month.

December 2001

Christmas! Guaranteed to lift my spirits. At least it always had in the past. Red, green, yellow, blue, and white twinkling lights dancing to the smell of pine and warm fires. All was well, until the last week of the month. Monday came, but spotting did not. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday more of the same. I didn’t think too much about it. I figured that my uterus was up to its old tricks of withholding. Around new years eve, I was feeling under the weather and we stayed home. I was spending quite a bit of time emptying my bladder and complaining about breast soreness. I was aware that these are often symptoms of being with child, but the specialists told me that wasn’t possible without intervention. I thought there was no way that I could be pregnant.

January 2002

Around the middle of the month, I began to get curious. Was it possible? Could the doctors be wrong? I went to the local dollar store with the hopes of finding a cheap test, just to check. The dollar store did not disappoint. They carried two different types of pregnancy tests and one ovulation test. I purchased the two pregnancy tests and a peanut butter cup covered in chocolate. Nothing left to do but wait till the morning, when the tests claimed that I would get the most accurate result. Spinning in my head all night, I was sure the sun would never rise. I didn’t want to tell my partner, because I didn’t want to get his hopes up if it was all in my head. Sleep did not come easy. If I was not shaking like a paint can being mixed, I was tossing and turning like mixed vegetables in a woc.

Three minutes. Pee on the stick and wait three minutes. I don’t know if you know how long three minutes are. I’ll explain. Three minutes is straightening up the sink and realizing that you have two minutes left. It is cleaning the toilet only to discover that in one minute your whole world might change.